A sworn affidavit filed by the Independent National Electoral Commission at the Federal High Court in Abuja on September 12, 2025, has exposed a devastating contradiction at the heart of INEC’s April 1, 2026 decision to withdraw recognition from the David Mark-led leadership of the African Democratic Congress. In its own court filing, INEC told the court under oath that it had monitored the ADC’s NEC meeting, recognised the Mark-led leadership, uploaded their names to its website, and argued that the court should not interfere because the acts were already completed. Six months later, INEC reversed everything.
In an affidavit deposed at the Federal High Court in Abuja on September 12, 2025, Jacob Ayuba, an assistant executive officer at INEC, laid out the commission’s position in clear and unambiguous terms. The affidavit was filed in response to the suit brought by Nafiu Bala (Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/1819/2025) seeking to stop members of the Mark-led ADC national working committee from parading themselves as party leaders.
INEC’s position in the affidavit was straightforward: it opposed Bala’s application and asked the court not to interfere in the domestic affairs of the ADC.
Here is what INEC told the court under oath:
Ayuba stated in the affidavit that INEC received a letter from the ADC on July 4, 2025, inviting the commission to monitor the party’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting fixed for July 29, 2025, at the ADC global campus in Abuja. The venue was later changed to Chelsea Hotel in Abuja, and INEC deployed its officials to monitor the meeting.
“The INEC officials who monitored the ADC NEC meeting filed a report and submitted it at the commission’s headquarters.”
The monitoring report, according to the affidavit, indicated that the ADC NEC effected changes in its leadership on July 29, 2025, by appointing David Mark as national chairman and Rauf Aregbesola as national secretary.
Ayuba went further, confirming that following the leadership changes, INEC uploaded the names of Mark, Aregbesola, and all the new national officers of the ADC onto its website.
“The 4th Defendant, in furtherance of the change of leadership in the 1st Defendant’s National Working Committee, also uploaded the names of all the National Officers of the Party on its website.”
INEC attached the list of the national officers as Exhibit “INEC 3” to the affidavit, confirming that it had formally recognised the Mark-led leadership and published their names for the world to see.
In what is now the most damning paragraph of the entire affidavit, INEC told the court that the acts Bala was seeking to restrain had already been completed and that an injunction cannot lie to stop a completed act.
“The acts the Plaintiff/Applicant seeks to restrain by the ex parte application have already been completed, to wit: The National Executive Committee Meeting of the 1st Defendant fixed for 29th July, 2025 has been held wherein the 5th Defendant and his other national officers of the Party resigned their positions and appointed 2nd and 3rd Defendants as interim National Chairman and National Secretary respectively.”
“Based on the outcome of the 1st Defendant’s NEC Meeting of 29th July, 2025, the 4th Defendant has already accorded recognition to the 2nd and 3rd Defendants as the National Chairman and National Secretary respectively of the Party and reflected same on the 4th Defendant’s Website.”
“I know as a fact that an injunction cannot lie to stop a completed act that is, recognition of the 2nd and 3rd Defendants as National Chairman and National Secretary of the 1st Defendant and the publication of their names on the 4th Defendant’s website.”
INEC further argued in the affidavit that Bala’s application was an invitation to the court to delve into the internal and domestic affairs of the ADC as a political party, and urged the court not to do so.
“The Plaintiff’s application is in substance an invitation to this Honourable Court to delve into issues of internal/domestic affairs of the 1st Defendant as a political party. I know as a fact that a Court of record should not dabble into a political question which remains the exclusive preserve of political parties which should be allowed to do their things.”
“The Plaintiff’s grievances as contained in his Originating Summons relate solely to the 1st Defendant’s internal processes of changing National Officers of the Party. I know as a fact that the jurisdiction of the Court in party affairs is limited to where its complaint is about the conduct of its primaries for the selection/nomination of a candidate, and which is not the case of the Plaintiff in this case.”
On April 1, 2026 approximately six months after filing the affidavit described above INEC issued a press statement announcing that it would refrain from engaging with either the David Mark-led faction or the Nafiu Bala faction of the ADC. It said it would not attend meetings, congresses, or conventions of either group pending the determination of the case before the Federal High Court, and cited the March 12, 2026 judgment of the Court of Appeal.
In other words, the very same INEC that had sworn under oath in September 2025 that it had recognised the Mark-led leadership, uploaded their names, and argued that the acts were “completed” and could not be reversed by an injunction — turned around six months later and effectively reversed those very completed acts.
How can INEC swear under oath that recognition of the Mark-led leadership was a “completed act” that cannot be undone by an injunction, and then six months later undo that exact act by withdrawing recognition? How can INEC tell the court “don’t dabble into party affairs” and then dabble into those same party affairs itself by de-recognising both factions? How can INEC argue that the court should not grant Bala’s application, and then, without any court ordering it to do so, give Bala exactly what he wanted — the de-recognition of Mark?
The central question that INEC has not answered is: what changed? Between September 12, 2025, when INEC filed the affidavit defending the Mark-led leadership, and April 1, 2026, when it withdrew recognition from both factions, only one significant legal event occurred: the Court of Appeal’s March 12, 2026 ruling.
But the Court of Appeal did not order INEC to withdraw recognition from the Mark-led leadership. It dismissed Mark’s appeal challenging the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court, holding that the appeal was incompetent because there was no substantive ruling to appeal from — the trial judge had merely directed that parties be put on notice. The Court of Appeal then ordered the parties to “maintain status quo ante bellum.”
As Senator David Mark has argued, the status quo ante bellum — the state that existed before the dispute — was the Mark-led leadership that INEC had already recognised, monitored, and uploaded. INEC’s own affidavit confirms this.
If the Court of Appeal did not order INEC to de-recognise Mark, and INEC’s own affidavit confirmed that it had already recognised Mark as a completed act, then who or what caused INEC to reverse its own sworn position? Was it the “people” who were calling the INEC Chairman? Was it the serving governor and former minister that Senator Abbo has alleged are behind the crisis? Or was it something else entirely?
For clarity, here is what the Court of Appeal actually decided:
